Live data from Hacker News

Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

arstechnica.com

171–180 of 771 posts

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#171

Should Oracle win this case, I predict that Free Software licenses will emerge as the clear market choice. Licenses that enshrine interoperability along with the freedom to modify or reimplement in part or wholesale will suddenly provide significantly more value over non-Free software which will be a proprietary minefield and the value will not be for technical but purely from legal liability. Anyone setting out to d…

Or proprietary software could just publish their interoperable APIs under free license.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#172
post #139

> This is a widespread practice in the software industry. Oracle, for example, re-implemented Amazon's S3 API so that customers who built software for Amazon's cloud platform could easily switch to Oracle's rival cloud platform. Oracle themselves are doing it, could someone with a better legal mind explain to me how this doesn't make the case simpler to decide? Is it that they're saying, it should be illegal but sinc…

They are probably thinking that they could negotiate licenses with the other big companies easier than any startup could, thus locking out a lot of competition.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#173
post #42

I am really not up on copyright law, but I see this as analogous to someone writing a book. Say I wrote a book and titled all of my chapters the same as another book, the book was given a different title and the chapters themselves where very different on the inside but naturally my table of contents looks exactly the same, would this be considered infringe in the publishing world (I don't know)? Also based on that:…

Books are not equivalent to software because software has a functional purpose. While programming has creative elements, the primary goal of a program is to achieve certain functions (whereas the primary goal of a book is to enable creative expression or to record factual information). If I want to support a Windows program on Linux I have no choice but to implement the Windows API. Likewise, if I want to interface w…

Books can have a functional purpose. E.g. if it is a reference manual for a car. If you used the same table of contents for the reference manual, but the contents were substantially different, would that still be unlicensed copying?

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#174
post #165
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strawman. The argument wasn't that no left-leaning people would treat things as property, but that most conservatives would. As such, you're not attacking the actual argument with your point.

It's not a strawman at all, as the original statement is clearly setting up the flip side of that argument - that left-leaning justices are less likely to do so.

Well, even then, showing one left-leaning justice with pro-property stances doesn't actually disprove that argument. Less likely things still happen some of the time.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#175
I wonder if Oracle winning would reinvigorate software developement - by which I mean, maybe the resulting fragmentation would leave a lot of room for new ideas to be developed.

e.g.: if this court case was decided before Google made Android, then Google would have had to use something other than Java to do it and they wouldn't have been able to attract such a large developer base to make apps. Maybe they would have come up with a new language, or reused whatever else was viable at the time. But, maybe their OS wouldn't have been so overwhelming in its popularity and other OSes, like PalmOS and the windows phone OS, could have remained alive today. I think there's a lot of people, maybe the majority, who would agree that Android's UI was inferior to one or both of those alternatives.

e.g. #2: looking to the future, the resulting fragmentation could mean that even new OSes will have to be developed (edit - since even kernel APIs could be covered by copyright). That could be pretty bad for open source and hacking in general - except that as another poster has pointed out, closed-down software might turn out to be pretty useless compared to open-source. Maybe Oracle winning could be a really good thing for reinvigorating the development of new paradigms in software.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"that the conservative majority is predisposed to treat everything as property..." This is misleading at best. For example: RBG, despite her left-leaning reputation, was easily one of, if not the , most pro-copyright and pro-IP justices on the bench. (Relatedly, she also was pretty pro big business, which rarely fits the portrayed narrative.) Not all areas of law, especially at the Supreme Court level, easily trans…

I'm no expert on RBG, but I always pegged her as a Neo-Lib, rather than a Leftist.

This is really an important distinction. Social issues like gay marriage and things like this are completely orthogonal. The Democratic Party as a whole is very much neoliberal or liberal as opposed to left. Liberal judges are much the same.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#177
post #150

Why is this being pitched (in all the press I have seen) as a "google vs Oracle" fight? This is a direct attack on software development by Oracle, who will also suffer if they prevail in the courts.

A. That is the actual name of the case.

B. "Faceoff", "versus", and " debate" pander to the competitive culture of American business and politics.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#178
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the court's responsibility. There is no legal definition of "interface" or "implementation". They're just trying to interpret a gray area in the law and it could come down either way. Any real solution will have to be legislated.

"Any real solution will have to be legislated. " So true. Congress can amend the particular section of the code to explicitly exclude APIs from being copyrightable ... if they want to.

Yes, this is, has always been, and always will be the case.

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#179
post #138

> Jonathan Schwartz's (CEO of Sun when Google re-implemented the Java APIs): > "Google's lawyer, Robert van Nest, asked Schwartz whether, during his tenure at Sun, Java APIs were considered proprietary or protected by Sun." > "'No,' Schwartz said in explaining the nature of open software. 'These are open APIs, and we wanted to bring in more people...we wanted to build the biggest tent and invite as many people as pos…

This has been brought up many times in many of the cases. IIRC, it has repeatedly been ignored as not an official statement (same w/ his past blog posts) and that the original intent is unrelated to whether they are protectable.

IANAL, but it's surprising that the original intent, or the manner in which a product was sold, would not matter. That means a company can trick people into an ecosystem by lying about their licensing terms, then suddenly pull the rug out?

Re: Google’s Supreme Court faceoff with Oracle was a disaster for Google

#180

Should Oracle win this case, I predict that Free Software licenses will emerge as the clear market choice. Licenses that enshrine interoperability along with the freedom to modify or reimplement in part or wholesale will suddenly provide significantly more value over non-Free software which will be a proprietary minefield and the value will not be for technical but purely from legal liability. Anyone setting out to d…

Maybe after the dust settles. But you can bet lots of people will reenact the SCO saga, and now they won't have to lie on every claim.
Post reply on HN